how to prevent lubesizing crooked?

[Whiterabbit]

Hi guys,

I have a lyman 45 and 1.3" long bullets to lube up. Normally they rest flat in the die and that works pretty well, but for seating gas checks, not so much. The gas check never sits flat in the bullet, there's a tilt. no problem in the sizer, it gets mashed flat/swaged. But it does mean I have to hold the bullet by hand to the top punch and just line up best I can.

I'm getting reasonable groups so far, but I think I can do better and bullet uniformity is gonna be one of my "buttons"

anyways, if I'm not perfect on that top punch, I shave the bullets. It's REALLY obvious when I try to push them through crooked.

I just want a good technique to ensure that bullet is perfectly aligned. Surely there's an easy way!



----------

Right now my only idea is to cut a new top punch that is EXACTLY the same size as my meplat diameter (right now is oversize). Doesn't solve the problem but maybe helps me get better alignment by hand.

[canyon-ghost]

With gas checks, I turn a handful right side up on the table and press the bullet in the gas check then, put it in the lubesizer. If you pay careful attention to snapping the gas check onto the bullet beforehand, it will be straighter. I just push down on the bullet hard enough to seat the gas check (as much as possible without mechanical advantage). Then let the gas check seater finish crimping it on.

It will also help if you use the appropriate top punch in the sizer. Possibly a bit of light oil to get started. I lube bullets with a 4500 and heat for Carnuba Red (and a lot of other aloxes too).

[canyon-ghost]

As for your "bullet uniformity button", just wire that into the bullet base and check the fillout for tight specs. Rounded edges mean gas checks don't fit good, too hot with flash mean they will be almost too big for the gas check. In the latter case, you can take the flash off with a razor knife and still use the bullet.

You weigh your bullets? It does help the groups. I establish a criteria by weight. Just take the whole lot, weigh for a medium or average weight. I lose all the too light ones, they may have air bubbles. And the too heavy should be about a handful out of several hundred rounds.

I keep a notebook for writing weights and powder charges down, you need all this for later batches.

[midnight]

In my experience you must have a perfectly fitting top punch to size your bullets straight. This is so important that NOE and Miha supply top punches with their molds. If you can't get the correct punch, make your own by boreing out a large punch and filling it with epoxy. Coat your chosen bullet with a release agent and put it in the sizer. install your epoxy filled punch in the press anlower it firmly on the bullet. Wipe off excess with acetone and turn the whole thing upside down and let harden overnight. Presto, a perfect nose punch.

Bob

[canyon-ghost]

I use my left hand to line up the bullet with the top punch. Just keep your index finger and thumb on the ogive of the bullet, when the punch comes down, you can tell when the bullet goes straight.

[Roundnoser]

Would it make a difference if you sized and lubed the bullet in a seperate operation? If the bullet was already sized and lubed before you attempted to seat the gas check, would it help with the allignment / lead shaving?

[beagle]

Make a nose first sizer rig to really cure that problem and then come back and bube seperately.

I was getting a lot of bending and distortion on my heavier .25s until I rolled one across a piece of glass and noted the problem. In fact, they didn't shoot too badly....just wobbled.

Making a adapter to take your sizing dies was easy and a plunger pushed them through and seated the GC squarely and I've had little trouble since......or you can buy Lee push through sizers, use them and then lube./beagle

[Whiterabbit]

Maybe. I size through a LEE sizer, and use the lubrisizer right now to rough me in and get the lube in. For now, that's the way I'd prefer to do it, and the lubriziser does better at giving me flat gas checks compared to the push through.

So the way I really want to make it work is: lubrisizer to go from as-cast to lubed with gas check, then a pass through the LEE sizer to get final dimensions.

best I can do for now is the hold-bullet-with-left-hand thing. I'll try to make a perfect nose punch when I get a chance.

[largom]

Two things:
First, you need a proper fitting top punch.
Second: you should install the gas check by hand.

Even with the above you should still align your boolit to the top punch before applying pressure to the sizer handle.

Larry

[lmcollins]

First, does the shank of your bullet fit your gas check? I have one mutiple cavity mould that has a cavity that makes a shank on one or more cavity that is just a bit too big to let a check be seated. Take a cast bullet and see if a check pushes on by hand without the sizer. If it doesn't that is your problem.

If the shank is too big to hold the check you have two options: open up the gas check, or trim or swage the shank of the bullet so it fits INTO the gas check.

I made up a tool to push into the check to gently "flair" its top a bit if the gas check will not seat "by hand" against the edge of my bench.

I put all bullets aside from this mould that I cannot hand-seat the gas check on. I put a check on the tool and push it against a piece of steel taped to the edge of my bench. I then seat the check by hand before I run them through the lube sizer. A tool could be made up that fits the ram of your lube sizer appropriately shaped on the end. You would just need to put something flat and hard like a piece of steel or the Lyman wrench over the bullit orafice.

To trim the bullet shank you could also make up a tool. Swede Hanson already has done the work for you. Look at the Vendor Listing, and buy one from him. I think he calls it a "shank trimmer."

If you have access to a lathe you could also take a bar scrap and recess it to enable you to slightly "swage" your shanks slightly so that they fit into your gas check using the appropriate bullet nose punch, and a gentle push.

From what I've learned about mechanics, and also lube sizers, I think the best thing to do is slightly open the gas check until the bullet base permits the gas check to slip onto the bullet by hand.

Something that also helps on any gas check lube sizer die is to take a small carbade boring tool and champfer and recess ofyour die until a gas check JUST fits INTO it, so that it holds the check and the bullit (boolit?) shank fits into it before it is run into the sizer.

Check your shank-to-bullet fit, and let us know if you need help.

[Whiterabbit]

sure, they never fit like that. I just assumed that was a 45 caliber thing, since I now have two molds like that. my 7mm mold fits them like a dream.

so 45's are supposed to snap right on flush too, huh? I think that means I need a new mold.

[Whiterabbit]

Here's something i came up with. I've sized ZERO bullets with it so far, so it could be a spectacular failure:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=40805&stc=1&d=1329112986

Left is my current top punch. Center is the brass plug I made. Just deep enough to clear the bullet in and out of the sizer (I actually made it deeper but it was too deep to fit). Right is a hot glue plug that fits in the .50" hole to cradle the 45 cal nose.

So the idea is take a known good aligned bullet and plunk it into the sizer. Then fill my top punch with hot glue and drive it into the bullet nose to get a perfect casting.

I suspect it'll last about 100 bullets then be fried. But if it works I'll repeat the process using JB weld.

Hopefully it'll work.

[Ed in North Texas]

Is that the top punch you were using? If you were using a flat top punch on round nose boolits, it is no wonder you are having a problem.

Maybe the easiest (though it costs more than JB Weld) answer to your problem with seating gas checks is the NOE Gas Check Seater. See Vendor/Sponsor Sales section for Al's list of items for sale.

Ed

[Whiterabbit]

Same round nose but with a flat top, maybe .28" give or take meplat. That's another example bullet that looks almost the same. That bullet there also is a PB.

My GC bullet is the LEE 45/70 500 grain bullet, there's only one GC version.

[Whiterabbit]

Actually, the straight RN PB sized GREAT in the lubrisizer even with the flat punch. The PB sat flat on the sizer pin, and all went smoothly.

It's the FN GC that's the real challenge since the GC never clips on all that well.

[Ben]

Whiterabbit

I had the same identical problems that you did until I began using this new system. Problems are over now ! !


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=130132

[Whiterabbit]

Whiterabbit

I had the same identical problems that you did until I began using this new system. Problems are over now ! !


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=130132

Ben, you are the man. I want you to know how much I appreciate you sharing your design and making it available to Cast Boolits. I'm no machinist, but I can sometimes get by:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/200824f49e03328a24.jpg

I went to go test it, almost giddy like a child, and realized I don't have a single cast bullet without a gas check already seated! Now I have to go cast a bunch up for no other purpose other than to test it out.

And make a bunch of extra seaters in different sizes.

[Bret4207]

I'm very glad to see other people looking at this issue and I'm ashamed to say I missed Bens excellent answer to the problem previously. You guys are way ahead of me in this area now. I have found that simple things like chamfering the top edge f the GC shank will help ad will tapping it on very lightly with a wood or plastic mallet- I use a 6 oz dead blow plastic mallet.

Sizing is a much trickier thing than we normally think of it as. You can do far more damage than good sizing. Kudos to you all for seeing this!

[Whiterabbit]

I spoke too soon for happiness. I think LEE mis-cuts their GC shanks, both my molds don't fit properly. The GC seater proves it to me now. By the time I add enough force via hammer to fully seat the GC, the nose slumps enough to be over throat size. My bullets must (sadly, for some time now) have a random position between the nose and crimp groove to a true driving band.

I don't know if that would also help explain why my best groups have been over 3" at 100 yards.

The question is do I continue to try to make this work somehow, or give up and chuck this mold, buy a new one.

[Bret4207]

rabbit- try champhering the GC shank, sometimes even your thuimbnail will do it. That can help. And take a good look at your GC and see if it's misshapen at all. I would imagine at some point someone will come out with a GC shank uniformer to cut them properly.

ETA- it's not just Lee moulds that have this problem. With all our varying alloys it's a wonder we get the fit we do.

[Whiterabbit]

that's a drag. My really nice 7mm mold doesn't do this at all. Both my 45's (lee) do. I used a brass chamfer bit to do as you suggested, there's still shaved lead around the GC after seating.

Only thing I can think of now would be to use a punch to open up the GC a little bit.
I agree a shank uniformer would be a GREAT tool to have. I've thought about how great a tool like that would be many times. any suggestions on how to make one, I'd try it.

[Ben]

Shooting groups like this at 100 yds. didn't happen until I started using my gas check seating tool. Makes a tremendous difference in the accuracy.

5 rounds at 100 yds
g/cs were .014 " thickness Amerimax AL made with Pat's g/c making tool :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/002-6.jpg

[Whiterabbit]

when I get my pistol to shoot like that at 100 yards, I will be very happy.

So it looks like it WASN'T the GC seating tool that is causing nose deformation, it's the lubrisizer.

So now I'm push sizing, seating the gas check, push-sizing again, then gently lubrisizing to lube.

I think I am going to recut the GC seater to a larger diameter to seat the as-casts. Also, I think I am going to make a special nesting center punch so that I don't have to hold/align my nose punch over the bullet nose for tapping.

so, my goof for not believing in the seater.

But this WAS for "chamfered" bullets. I'll try again with truly "pb" (gas check shank as-cast) when I get a chance.

[Bret4207]

Something else to look for- see how well your sizer is aligned. I was all set to buy a Lyman from a guy once for cheap. Happened to notice the top punch and base weren't well aligned at all. Just another thing to look at.

[Whiterabbit]

I may start a new thread over this one. The alignment thing shouldn't be a problem, even Ton at accurate molds sells flat punches to combat exactly that issue, and it's the reason my homemade punch is 50 cal sized for a 45 cal bullet - the remaining space is filled with hot glue to create perfect alignment no matter what the existing sizer alignment is.

But it looks like my problems AFTER building Ben's GC seater are now related entirely to sizer nose deformation.

So I'll suggest that the crooked problem is now solved, that my current issues are unintentional swaging from the sizer. This should require a new topic.




To anyone reading this as an archived item, the GC seater product is what solved the lubrisizer-crooked issue.